The World Champion Tip Top Tailor men’s fast-pitch team of 1949 stand in front of their plane. The team is among the Hall of Fame inductees being honoured by Softball Canada Nov. 14 and 15, 2009 in Ottawa.

The World Champion Tip Top Tailor men’s fast-pitch team of 1949, which routinely drew faithful crowds of thousands to the Beach every Monday, Wednesday and Friday night in the 1940s, is among the Hall of Fame inductees being honoured by Softball Canada today (Nov. 14) and tomorrow in Ottawa.
It’s been 60 years since the legendary team stunned their American super powers by winning the 28-team Amateur Softball Association championship tournament in Little Rock, Arkansas, bringing the elusive crown for the first time north of the 49th parallel.

“We had one error all tournament…We had a flawless fielding club back then and our pitcher, Charley Justice, who we picked up in Detroit from Joe Louis’s Punchers, he was out of this world. An intelligent pitcher,” recalled first baseman William “Babe” Gresko, who grew up in Toronto’s Stanley Park area where many great ball players hailed from at the time, including Goody Rosen and Jimmy Williams.

Back then factories would produce their own teams and send them into industrial leagues. Most were competitive but none stacked up to the Beach area team.

“Everything just came together at once for us,” said Gresko, pointing out it was the first year baseball gloves were used by players other than pitchers and catchers. “We had a good mix of young players and older, more experienced players…the first five batters (in the lineup) were left-handed batters, that sure helped,” he recalled, in attempting to pin down exactly what it was that made the team so dynamic.

People have often asked him who he thought was the best player on the team.

“They were all superb ball players; they were all stars. At least six of them could’ve been inducted (into the Hall) individually,” he said.

But truth is, the team’s story, which has all the markings of a Hollywood movie script, might not have seen the light of day again had it not been for the doggedness of John Stevens, a St. Mary’s, Ont. school teacher.

Stevens, a big fan, a player and a former employee with the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame, heard about the Toronto team and approached Softball Canada about installing a team category to the Hall, specifically for the local squad.

He drafted a proposal and submitted it “not knowing how it would be received. Will they see the value in it?”

His pitch was approved in June.

He began contacting the surviving team members immediately.

“These guys put way more into the game than they ever got back, and they’re not getting any younger,” said Stevens, who will get a chance to watch the team’s surviving members - Gresko, Len Gaull, Ray Pulfer and Pat McCullagh - renew their friendships Saturday when he chauffeurs the foursome by car to the Ottawa Softball Canada ceremony.

There is an almost endless supply of anecdotes on the subject of the team and its trip to the world championships. Many have already been uncovered, including the one about the team’s three black players - Shelley Milley, Percy McCracken and Justice - being forced out of the team’s hotel room in Arkansas. They were relocated to the town’s “coloured” section.

“That was the first time we ever encountered anything like that, because up here we treated them like anyone else,” said Gresko. “It was quite shocking to see that.”

Then there’s the story about the team turning aside the legendary Eddie Feigner and his four-man King of His Court touring team.

“He lost more times in Toronto than anywhere in the world,” he said.

Or the time Gresko met former major leaguer Brooks Robinson before a Blue Jays-Baltimore Orioles game in Toronto in the 1980s, only to find out Robinson was a huge fan of the former fast-pitch team. As it turned out, Robinson, a native of Little Rock, was “the kid keeping score in right field” during the team’s world championship run in Arkansas.

One fascinating morsel that remained mostly untouched, however, is the fact the team had its own plane.

Joe Dunkleman, one of the team’s owners who served in the Second World War, bought a DC-3 warplane, which the team used to travel in.

“Unfortunately Charley (Justice) had never flown before and it was an old propeller-driven aircraft so when you looked out (the window) all you could see is flames and sparks coming out of the engine exhaust,” recounted McCullagh, who was 19 at the time.

“That was the first time I ever heard anyone say ‘If God had meant for us to fly, he would’ve given us wings,’” he laughed.

The team is making plans for a reunion in the Beach possibly for next summer.

Pulfer played left field, McCullagh, centre field and Len Gaull was the catcher.

Vic Goberis played centre field, Art Upper was coach and right field, Charley Justice was pitcher, Joe Spring played first base, Bill Imray played second base, Shelly Miley played centre, Russ Johnson was pitcher, Tom Stewart was a pitcher, Sam Shefsky was a manager, John Kozachenko played third base, George Phillips played second base, Ed Geralde played short stop, Jim Green was trainer and Percy McCracken was a pitcher and also played on the 1949 team and will be recognized posthumously.